|
29b329f
|
The key thing is to force yourself through the work, force the skills to come; that's the hardest phase.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
a9425c5
|
Databases of this type are interrogated in a language called SQL. You send them commands like the one shown here to interact with their stored information. Understanding how to manipulate these databases is subtle. The example command, for example, creates a "view": a virtual database table that pulls together data from multiple existing tables, and that can then be addressed by the SQL commands like a standard table. When to create views a..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
86c8c7c
|
Indeed, if you study the lives of other influential figures from both distant and recent history, you'll find that a commitment to deep work is a common theme.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
bc838f6
|
constantly sending and receiving e-mail messages like human network routers, with frequent breaks for quick hits of distraction.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
37aeb39
|
By accepting an assistant position he threw himself into the center of the action, where he could find out how things actually work.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
c4e1ecd
|
A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous,
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
5fc1a89
|
He called such a culture a technopoly, and he didn't mince words in warning against it. "Technopoly eliminates alternatives to itself in precisely the way Aldous Huxley outlined in Brave New World," he argued in his 1993 book on the topic. "It does not make them illegal. It does not make them immoral. It does not even make them unpopular. It makes them invisible and therefore irrelevant."
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
ca13def
|
The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
27c3d74
|
The complex reality of the technologies that real companies leverage to get ahead emphasizes the absurdity of the now common idea that exposure to simplistic, consumer-facing products--especially in schools--somehow prepares people to succeed in a high-tech economy. Giving students iPads or allowing them to film homework assignments on YouTube prepares them for a high-tech economy about as much as playing with Hot Wheels would prepare them ..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
a804e24
|
What? You say that full energy given to those sixteen hours will lessen the value of the business eight? Not so. On the contrary, it will assuredly increase the value of the business eight. One of the chief things which my typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of a continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change--not rest, except in sleep.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
c55a751
|
if you're not putting in the effort to become, as Steve Martin put it, "so good they can't ignore you," you're not likely to end up loving your work--regardless of whether or not you believe it's your true calling."
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
1a5cacf
|
if it's rare and valuable, it's not easy to get. This insight brought me into the world of performance science, where I encountered the concept of deliberate practice--a method for building skills by ruthlessly stretching yourself beyond where you're comfortable.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
2daf937
|
musicians, athletes, and chess players, among others, know all about deliberate practice, but knowledge workers do not. Most knowledge workers avoid the uncomfortable strain of deliberate practice like the plague, a reality emphasized by the typical cubicle dweller's obsessive e-mail-checking habit--for what is this behavior if not an escape from work that's more mentally demanding?
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
9aa9729
|
Men of genius themselves were great only by bringing all their power to bear on the point on which they had decided to show their full measure.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
d91a064
|
I keep a tally of the total number of hours I've spent that month in a state of deliberate practice.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
97b0e23
|
My professional situation now couldn't be more perfect," Scott reports. "I chose to pursue the career I knew in my heart I was passionate about: politics.... I love my office, my friends... even my boss." The glamorous promises of the passion hypothesis, however, led Scott to question whether his perfect job was perfect enough. "It's not fulfilling," he worries when reflecting on the fact that his job, like all jobs, includes difficult resp..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
747cd3d
|
You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
cdbdab1
|
The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile." Csikszentmihalyi calls this mental state flow"
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
a5f5e4d
|
the message at the core of this book: Working right trumps finding the right work--it's a simple idea, but it's also incredibly subversive, as it overturns decades of folk career advice all focused on the mystical value of passion. It wrenches us away from our daydreams of an overnight transformation into instant job bliss and provides instead a more sober way toward fulfillment.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
8aa2157
|
To be great at something is to be well myelinated.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
3db4e9e
|
In a 2009 paper, titled, intriguingly, "Why Is It So Hard to Do My Work?," Leroy introduced an effect she called attention residue. In the introduction to this paper, she noted that other researchers have studied the effect of multitasking--trying to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously--on performance, but that in the modern knowledge work office, once you got to a high enough level, it was more common to find people working on multipl..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
389c502
|
Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy The ability to quickly master hard things. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
c4c7e7c
|
On the other hand, if you're inside this pool--someone whose contribution to the world is discrete, clear, and individualized*--then you should give this philosophy serious consideration, as it might be the deciding factor between an average career and one that will be remembered.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
101bf8b
|
conscious mind is able to follow the precise arithmetic rules needed for correctness. On the other hand, for decisions that involve large amounts of information and multiple vague, and perhaps even conflicting, constraints, your unconscious mind is well suited to tackle the issue.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
1b7dddf
|
more detail, this ritual should ensure that every incomplete task, goal, or project has been reviewed and that for each you have confirmed that either (1) you have a plan you trust for its completion, or (2) it's captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right. The process should be an algorithm: a series of steps you always conduct, one after another. When you're done, have a set phrase you say that indicates completi..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
9598416
|
To do real good physics work, you do need absolute solid lengths of time ... it needs a lot of concentration ... if you have a job administrating anything, you don't have the time. So I have invented another myth for myself: that I'm irresponsible. I'm actively irresponsible. I tell everyone I don't do anything. If anyone asks me to be on a committee for admissions, "no," I tell them: I'm irresponsible. Feynman was adamant in avoiding admin..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
99bce05
|
particular, identify a deep task (that is, something that requires deep work to complete) that's high on your priority list. Estimate how long you'd normally put aside for an obligation of this type, then give yourself a hard deadline that drastically reduces this time. If possible, commit publicly to the deadline--for example, by telling the person expecting the finished project when they should expect it. If this isn't possible (or if it ..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
4131030
|
this finding pushed back against conventional wisdom. Most people assumed (and still do) that relaxation makes them happy. We want to work less and spend more time in the hammock. But the results from Csikszentmihalyi's ESM studies reveal that most people have this wrong: Ironically, jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because like flow activities they have built-in goals, feedback rules, and challenges, all of which encourage..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
f4b438f
|
Ric Furrer is a master craftsman whose work requires him to spend most of his day in a state of depth--even a small slip in concentration can ruin dozens of hours of effort. He's also someone who clearly finds great meaning in his profession. This connection between deep work and a good life is familiar and widely accepted when considering the world of craftsmen. "The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manu..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
f9c9e16
|
The idle mind is the devil's workshop
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
c3f3b39
|
All the people I ever admired and respected led balanced lives--studying hard, partying hard, as well as being involved in activities and getting a decent amount of sleep each night. I really think this is the only logically defensible way of doing things." Chris, a straight-A college student"
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
ead3c89
|
The implication of these findings is clear. In work (and especially knowledge work), to increase the time you spend in a state of depth is to leverage the complex machinery of the human brain in a way that for several different neurological reasons maximizes the meaning and satisfaction you'll associate with your working life.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
d2d78c2
|
Your will, in other words, is not a manifestation of your character that you can deploy without limit; it's instead like a muscle that tires. This is why the subjects in the Hofmann and Baumeister study had such a hard time fighting desires--over time these distractions drained their finite pool of willpower until they could no longer resist. The same will happen to you, regardless of your intentions--unless, that is, you're smart about you..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
ed68d0b
|
Let's begin with the first ability. To start, we must remember that we've been spoiled by the intuitive and drop-dead-simple user experience of many consumer-facing technologies, like Twitter and the iPhone. These examples, however, are consumer products, not serious tools: Most of the intelligent machines driving the Great Restructuring are significantly more complex to understand and master.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
abe212d
|
Therefore, if you're in a marketplace where the consumer has access to all performers, and everyone's q value is clear, the consumer will choose the very best. Even if the talent advantage of the best is small compared to the next rung down on the skill ladder, the superstars still win the bulk of the market. In the 1980s, when Rosen studied this
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
2e81787
|
There is, however, a lesser-known piece to this story. As Christensen recalls, Grove asked him during a break in this meeting, "How do I do this?" Christensen responded with a discussion of business strategy, explaining how Grove could set up a new business unit and so on. Grove cut him off with a gruff reply: "You are such a naive academic. I asked you how to do it, and you told me what I should do. I know what I need to do. I just don't k..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
f0183c0
|
In a seminal 1981 paper, the economist Sherwin Rosen worked out the mathematics behind these "winner-take-all" markets. One of his key insights was to explicitly model talent--labeled, innocuously, with the variable q in his formulas--as a factor with "imperfect substitution," which Rosen explains as follows: "Hearing a succession of mediocre singers does not add up to a single outstanding performance." In other words, talent is not a commo..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
401b04f
|
other technologies like data visualization, analytics, high speed communications, and rapid prototyping have augmented the contributions of more abstract and data-driven reasoning, increasing the values of these jobs." In other words, those with the oracular ability to work with and tease valuable results out of increasingly complex machines will thrive."
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
a4e9845
|
As the journalist Daniel Coyle surveys in his 2009 book, The Talent Code, these scientists increasingly believe the answer includes myelin--a layer of fatty tissue that grows around neurons, acting like an insulator that allows the cells to fire faster and cleaner. To understand the role of myelin in improvement, keep in mind that skills, be they intellectual or physical, eventually reduce down to brain circuits. This new science of perform..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
318fc0f
|
rhythmic philosophy. This philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit. The goal, in other words, is to generate a rhythm for this work that removes the need for you to invest energy in deciding if and when you're going to go deep. The chain method is a good example of the rhythmic philosophy of deep work scheduling because it combines a simple scheduling he..
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
08e873b
|
Their rituals minimized the friction in this transition to depth, allowing them to go deep more easily and stay in the state longer. If they had instead waited for inspiration to strike before settling in to serious work, their accomplishments would likely have been greatly reduced.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
48abd4c
|
Hardness scares off the daydreamers and the timid, leaving more opportunity for those like us who are willing to take the time to carefully work out the best path forward and then confidently take action.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
53e13d5
|
whiteboard effect. For some types of problems, working with someone else at the proverbial shared whiteboard can push you deeper than if you were working alone. The presence of the other party waiting for your next insight--be it someone physically in the same room or collaborating with you virtually--can short-circuit the natural instinct to avoid depth.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |
|
b99e8d6
|
easy to identify the relevant lead measure: time spent in a state of deep work dedicated toward your wildly important goal.
|
|
|
Cal Newport |